ABOUT THE AUTHOR
Mark Beaumont grew up in the foothills of the Scottish Highlands. When he was twelve, he cycled across Scotland, then, a few years later, completed the 1,000-mile solo ride across Britain from John OGroats to Lands End. His next long-distance ride took him the length of Italy, a journey of 1,336 miles, helping to raise 50,000 for charity. After graduating from Glasgow University, he decided against a conventional career and devoted himself full-time to his endurance adventures.
In 2008, Mark completed his Guinness World Record-breaking cycle around the world, having travelled 18,297 miles in just 194 days and 17 hours. He has self-filmed and presented two documentaries for the BBC, The Man Who Cycled the World and The Man Who Cycled the Americas, and will embark on his next adventure in the summer of 2011. Visit his website at www.markbeaumontonline.com
The Secret Race
Tyler Hamilton and Daniel Coyle
On a fateful night in 2009, Tyler Hamilton and Daniel Coyle met for dinner in Boulder, Colorado. Over the next eighteen months, Hamilton would tell Coyle his story, and his sports story, in explosive detail, never sparing himself in the process. In a way, he became as obsessed with telling the truth as he had been with winning the Tour de France just a few years before. The truth would set Tyler free, but would also be the most damning indictment yet of teammates like Lance Armstrong.
The result of this determination is The Secret Race, a book that pulls back the curtain and takes us into the secret world of professional cycling like never before. A world populated by unbelievably driven and some flawed characters. A world where the competition used every means to get an edge, and the options were stark. A world where it often felt like there was no choice.
WINNER OF THE WILLIAM HILL SPORTS BOOK OF THE YEAR AWARD 2012
Astonishingly candid... an extraordinary confessional
The Times
The book that finally broke Lance Armstrong
Sport magazine
Ebook available now
The Race to Truth
Emma OReilly
When Emma OReilly joined the US Postal cycling team in 1996, she could have had no idea how she would become a central figure in the biggest doping scandal in sporting history. Yet when Lance Armstrong, starting his comeback from cancer, signed for US Postal, it was Emma, the only woman on the team, who became his personal soigneur. This is the definitive inside story of that time, and of the enormous repercussions that resonate to this day for Emma, Lance and the whole sport.
Emma had the strength to break cyclings omerta by speaking out against the culture of doping. She thought she would be one of many whistleblowers, doing what she believed was right. Isolated and shunned by the sport she loved, however, her reputation was systematically destroyed. And yet she had the courage to bounce back, and remarkably, to forgive those who made her existence a living hell. This is the ultimate memoir of truth and its many consequences.
Emma OReilly is the real hero in this story. Without Emma, none of us would be sitting here
Tyler Hamilton, author of The Secret Race
Of all the people who testified against Lance Armstrong and the team, one person started it and that was Emma OReilly.
Paul Kimmage, author of Rough Ride
Emma tells me stories and anecdotes and this is an interview I never want to end. Maybe to pause for a second, bring the world in by the ear and say: Listen to this woman, just listen.
David Walsh, Seven Deadly Sins
Ebook available now
Climbs and Punishment
Felix Lowe
After almost a decade of reporting on the exploits of the pro peloton, raconteur Felix Lowe takes to the saddle and sets out to conquer the road from Barcelona to Rome.
Powered by local delicacies, painkillers and imaginary fans, Lowe pedals his way through three countries and over three mountain ranges, taking in some of the sports most fabled climbs. Following in the tracks of the worlds greatest wheelmen, he puts professional cycling's three major stage races the Tour de France, Vuelta a Espaa and Giro dItalia under the microscope, whilst capturing the potent mix of madness, humour and human spirit that fuels stage winners and pedal spinners alike.
Tracing the footsteps of the celebrated Carthaginian general Hannibal, who led his own pachyderm peloton of thirty-seven elephants over the Alps and all the way to the gates of Rome, Lowes epic quest pays homage to the sport, examines the psychology of both the crazed amateur and the pedalling pro, and delves into the awesome march of a military genius who almost brought the Roman Empire to its knees.
THE ENTERTAINING STORY OF A CYCLING FANS JOURNEY FROM BIKE WRITER TO BIKE RIDER
Lowe keeps up a flow of good-humoured chat and at the end he is a changed man an aching but ardent pelotonist
The Times
Ebook available now
The Man Who Cycled the World
Mark Beaumont
On 15 February 2008, Mark Beaumont pedalled through the Arc de Triomphe in Paris. Just 194 days and 17 hours previously, he had begun his attempt to circumnavigate the world in record time. Mark smashed the Guinness World Record by an astonishing 81 days. He had travelled more than 18,000 miles on his own through some of the harshest conditions one man and his bicycle can endure, camping wild at night and suffering from constant ailments.
The Man Who Cycled the World is the story not just of that amazing achievement, but of the events that turned Mark Beaumont into the man he is today. From the early years of his free-spirited childhood in the Scottish countryside to present day, he has been equally determined not to settle for an average existence, but to break free and follow his dreams.
THE INSPIRING STORY OF A RECORD-BREAKING SOLO CYCLE JOURNEY ROUND THE WORLD
The narrative is infused with human drama to keep the pages turning... impressive
Sunday Telegraph
One of modern cyclings genuine heroes
London Review of Books
Ebook available now
Easy Rider: My Life on a Bike
Rob Hayles
The son of a wrestler turned cycling coach called Killer Kowalski, Rob Hayles was soon winning races himself and realizing that he didnt really want to work for a living. The world of amateur club cycling in the 1990s was a long way from the millionaire sport of today though. When Rob first rode for Great Britain, it was with his own bike, one spare tyre, and a hand-me-down jersey.
Yet Rob became an integral part of the amazing success story of British cycling, and has been at the centre of the sport for the past two decades. With Bradley Wiggins, he was a member of the first GB team to become world champions at the team pursuit, the most demanding and thrilling discipline on the track. With teammate David Millar, he witnessed first-hand the drug-strewn, often demeaning life of the professional road cyclist. And as Mark Cavendishs training partner, Rob has been the experienced influence at the side of the fastest man on two wheels.